Captain Walters laughed convincingly. “My dear Mr. Colt, you can’t connect me with this murder. My alibi is complete. I had no motive and no opportunity.”
Colt smiled. “You stole Madame Coleman’s money, Walters,” he said. “A banking friend of hers helped her to investigate you. The Parisian police co-operated and they told me all about that. Somehow you learned that the singer was in a fair way to send you to Devil’s Island. So you decided to kill her!”
“That is preposterous! I refuse—”
“And you decided to make it a perfect crime. A perfect crime demands that the police have a victim. You decided on Digberry after calling on Margaret Coleman. She refused to forgive you. That was when you tore Digberry’s picture. You wanted only the upper part of his head — the lower part might have been recognized by Wilkins, a fellow craftsman. For you meant to kill a woman and have it appear that Digberry was her murderer. That was why you had a wig designed to make you resemble Digberry. That was why you bought a duplicate of his Palm Beach suit and his straw hat. We’ve traced the shops where you made those purchases. Too bad you didn’t destroy the suit and hat and wig, but before you got around to it, they were in our hands.
“You dressed up like Digberry and went to the Wedgeworth Arms. It was a hot night; the door was open and you crept in. Mr. Digberry was left-handed, so you fired the fatal shot with your left hand.”
“You can’t prove one word of this.”
“The concierge in Menton can prove that you owned the revolver with which Margaret Coleman was killed,” pursued Colt. “That was the gun you planted in Digberry’s apartment by calling him out and then going in yourself. After that, you thought the job was finished. You had faked the time on the wrist watch; by eleven o’clock, you were at home with your friend. You expected to prove you were home an hour before the crime was thought to be committed. Too bad a hair of your wig caught in that bedspring.”
“You have no evidence that will put me on the scene of the crime,” Walters snarled.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Walters,” Colt replied. “But I really can put you on the scene of that murder. You remember that Margaret Coleman’s face was powdered and rouged. She preferred a distinctive powder made by a craftsman in Norway. Madame still had some of it left from more prosperous days. When the killer lifted that body it was inevitable that some of the powder should fall on his clothing. And we found some of it on your suit — our chemists have identified it.”
“I’ve nothing to say,” replied Walters thickly, “until I talk with my attorney.”
Two detectives came and took him away to a fate that all New York remembers.
When the door had closed, Inspector Flynn rose. “Mr. Commissioner,” he protested, “that was wonderful work, but there’s still the evidence against Digberry. He did write those letters; he did lie about taking the money out of the bank.”
Colt chuckled. “You’re right,” he agreed. “Mr. Digberry, as Captain Walters told us, has a passion for realism, for exactitude. That is shown in his masterpieces of wigs, and also in his visit to the cemetery.”
“But he didn’t have a thousand dollars with him, chief—”
“Because he wanted to befriend a lady who had been gracious to him, Mr. Digberry drew on the savings which were the joint property of his wife and himself. Tomorrow, Mrs. Digberry returns. The day of reckoning is at hand. The new bankbook will hide the withdrawals. But what about the balance? Mr. Digberry must explain to his wife what he did with the missing thousand. Hence, he invented these letters and included himself among ten illustrious others.”
Flynn began to laugh. But Colt, opening a strongbox in his lower drawer, drew out a sheaf of green paper money.
“The Wedgeworth Arms has posted a reward of one thousand dollars,” he explained. “Mr. Digberry, you identified the Wilkins wig — I think you earned the cash and the glory.”
“I would like the cash,” Digberry admitted. “But chief, my wife mustn’t know about this affair. Give the credit to Mr. Flynn.”
With his pockets full of money, the wigmaker ran off to meet the train. Colt had promised to keep the facts a deep secret. And so he did — but Digberry, since a widower, has married again and the necessity for silence has passed.
Dime a Dance
by Cornell Woolrich
A distinguished yarn of the hard-boiled school, with the impact of a machine gun and the jangle of honky-tonk.
Patsy Marino was clocking us as usual when I barged in through the foyer. He had to look twice at his watch to make sure it was right when he saw who it was. Or pretended he had to, anyway. It was the first time in months I’d breezed in early enough to climb into my evening dress and powder up before we were due on the dance floor.
Marino said, “What’s the matter, don’t you feel well?”
I snapped, “D’ya have to pass a medical examination to get in here and earn a living?” and gave him a dirty look across the frayed alley-cat I wore on my shoulder.
“The reason I ask is you’re on time. Are you sure you’re feeling well?” he pleaded sarcastically.
“Keep it up and you won’t be,” I promised, but soft-pedalled it so he couldn’t quite get it. He was my bread and butter after all.
The barn looked like a morgue. It always did before eight — or so I’d heard. They didn’t have any of the “pash” lights on yet, those smoky red things around the walls that gave it atmosphere. There wasn’t a cat in the box, just five empty gilt chairs and the coffin. They had all the full-length windows overlooking the main drag open to get some ventilation in, too. It didn’t seem like the same place at all; you could actually breathe fresh air in it!
My high heels going back to the dressing-room clicked hollowly in the emptiness, and my reflection followed me upside-down across the waxed floor, like a ghost. It gave me a spooky feeling, like tonight was going to be a bad night. And whenever I get a spooky feeling, it turns out to be a bad night all right.
I shoved the dressing-room door in and started: “Hey, Julie, why didn’t you wait for me, ya getting too high-hat?” Then I quit again.
She wasn’t here either. If she wasn’t at either end, where the hell was she?
Only Mom Henderson was there, reading one of tomorrow morning’s tabs. “Is it that late?” she wanted to know when she saw me.
“Aw, lay off,” I said. “It’s bad enough I gotta go to work on a empty stomach.” I slung my cat-pelt on a hook. Then I sat down and took off my pumps and dumped some foot powder in them, and put them back on again.
“I knocked on Julie’s door on my way over,” I said, “and didn’t get any answer. We always have a cup of Java together before we come to work. I don’t know how I’m going to last the full fifteen rounds—”
An unworthy suspicion crossed my mind momentarily: Did Julie purposely dodge me to get out of sharing a cup of coffee with me like I always took with her other nights? They allowed her to make it in her rooming-house because it had a fire-escape; they wouldn’t allow me to make it in mine. I put it aside as unfair. Julie wasn’t that kind; you could have had the shirt off her back — only she didn’t wear a shirt, just a brassiere.
“Matter?” Mom sneered. “Didn’t you have a nickel on you to buy your own?”
Sure I did. Habit’s a funny thing, though. Got used to taking it with a side-kick and — I didn’t bother going into it with the old slob.